YouTube, the Google-owned video site has suspended President Trump’s channel, citing concern about “ongoing potential for violence for at least seven days Tuesday night, joining the long growing list of social media tech companies flexing its power in limiting or ejecting the president online presence.
In a tweet, YouTube said it’s locking Trump’s channel after one of his recent videos violated its policies against content it believes could incite violence.
“After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days,” YouTube said in a tweet.
“Given the ongoing concerns about violence, we will also be indefinitely disabling comments on President Trump’s channel, as we’ve done to other channels where there are safety concerns found in the comments section,” the follow-up tweet reads.
YouTube would not identify the offending video that results in its “strike” action. Several videos were uploaded to President Trump’s YouTube account today, most from his visit to Texas, addressing issues ranging from the border wall to law enforcement, to remarks he made to the press about his recent ban from big tech.
“Big Tech is doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country, and I believe it’s going to be a catastrophic mistake for them,” Trump told reporters Tuesday before heading to Texas.
YouTube also removed similar content from the White House’s channel that were removed from Trump’s own channel for violating policy, but the channel itself has not been suspended or been given a strike — just a warning.
Trump, who has about 2.8 million subscribers would not be able to upload new video content or posting live streams to his channel for at least seven days, in accordance to YouTube “three-strikes” policy. The first strike accord to the policy from YouTube suspends channels for about a week, with the second strike if it occurs again will result in a two week suspension. The third strike from YouTube terminates the channel if one violates its policies within the 90 days from the second strike.
YouTube also said it was indefinitely disabling comments on videos in Trump’s channel, citing risk of violence.
The Google-owned video site has taken down videos from the president before, including last week’s removal of a video message in which he urged rioters to “go home” following the breach in the U.S. Capitol. However, those videos previously removed didn’t come with the “strike” or the seven-day upload ban, as they occurred during the sites election grace period.
In the aftermath of the Capitol riot last week, many tech companies have moved to suspend or ban Trump online. On Friday, Twitter permanently banned Trump’s personal account, one of the president’s largest following on a social media platform in having over 88 million. Facebook indefinitely suspended Trump until Biden’s inauguration and other sites including Snapchat, Reddit and Twitch also curtailed the president from their platform.
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